Look, Ma, No Skin! Healthline’s New 3-D Body-Imaging Site

A new website, launched this week, maps the entire human body in 3-D detail — for everyone who’s ever wanted to get up close and personal with a liver without picking up a scalpel.

The new feature is called Healthline BodyMaps. It includes a search function, so you can home in on the precise body part you want — an element that previous body-imaging sites have missed — and points you to related health content on the site.

The site also includes a “symptom checker” similar to WebMD’s, though not quite as robust. It’s not possible to use Healthline’s symptom checker in conjunction with its body-imaging software, unfortunately, but you can backtrack to it for reference. Also, you can type in more than one symptom and the software will pull up common conditions that involve all the symptoms you indicate.

Of course, like any Web-based medical site, it’s best to take “diagnoses” with a giant grain of salt. If you think there’s something seriously wrong with you, there’s no substitute for seeing a doctor. But if you’re the kind of person who is calmed by knowing all the myriad explanations for your mysterious aches and pains, the site could keep you busy for a while.

And if for no other reason, Healthline is cool because it lets you strip away skin and muscle and view the body from the inside, revealing its skeleton and its wondrously elaborate nervous system. It’s just another way to marvel at the human body.